Thanks for that great comment. I appreciate the time you took to think of a response to my post.

I think tracking embeded audio, and more accurately all widget based advertising, is going to get very big in the future. And, thanks to some new announcements from Google, the tracking just got easier. Using Events you’ll be able to track visitor interactions with almost any media player, as long as you have access to the source code.

I’m a big fan of widgets. They really encourage interaction and, because you get to create then, you can add all sorts of tracking. Of course there will be limitations, but you have more control over a widget than you do some other forms of advertising.

Thanks again,

Justin

I DO have a bone with one statement you made, however, albeit a friendly one (ie. I’m not really being serious). You said:

“Luckily almost every analytics package on the market can help you identify the impact an audio ad has on your online traffic.”

Okay, so I don’t have a bone with that actual statement. I’m going to move sideways here a bit; bear with me, if you will.

If we were to replace one word in that statement, it becomes completely false:

“Luckily almost every analytics package on the market can help you identify the impact an audio POST (replaced for ‘ad’) has on your online traffic.”

Let’s think about that for a minute. When I say “post”, I’m referring to any embedded audio ad, which usually come in the form of flash-driven mp3 players/widgets, or full-page ads with flash-driven audio in a normal container (you know, those ads that run for 10-30 seconds when navigating between pages, with a “skip” link if their producers have any kind of soul).

I would surmise to say that this type of advertising has gained traction in the last 5 years. It’s corporate america’s answer to television advertising on the web.

Yet, with any in-roads it’s made onto the information superhighway, I’m still stumped to find more than a couple of solutions out there for actually tracking user behavior with this type of advertising. I imagine it’s a challenge to create said solutions for reasons two-fold:

1) Technically, it presents a challenge to track, say, how long a person listened to a given audio clip, or whether a user actually rewound the playhead to hear a particular segment over again. These audio clips aren’t passed through a url; instead, they’re usually embedded into a flash container. Anybody who knows anything about developing with Flash and ActionScript will tell you that building in a tracking mechanism would be tricky.

2) Morally, it’s frowned upon to natively track any kind of podcast or audio presentation, as the sole intended uses for said items is downloading, distributing and consuming.

Of course, will all of this being said, I will concede that I may simply not know of any analytical solutions that exist for this type of advertising. It sure seems like there isn’t much out there.

What are your thoughts? Can you point me in a direction I may not be considering?

Thank you for taking the time to endulge my query.

Thank you so much for taking the time and sharing your experience! A 251% increase in conversions sounds like a ringing endorsement of Audio Ads :)

Did you use any analytics package to measure the online impact that the audio ads may have had? I’d be interested to learn of any direct conversions or brand impact that may have happened.

Thanks again for the comment and congratulations on the success!

Justin

We were quoted for a Boston campaign $22k for 36 spots, with Google Audio Ads: $4k and 231 spots. Costs reduced by 500% and spots increased 640%. Conversions (people attending event) 251%!

There is a function they just began offering where you can add a 1-800 # to track your radio ad. So you could in a effect have the number sync into your analytics account and monitor the response.

We suggested they allow for vanity numbers so your audience can remember the number better.

The reporting from your ads is good, but some stations still chose not to list their call letters so you get a report that says n/a. Google reports this is Arbitron’s agreement with the stations but it is a little annoying showing an executive a report without call letters for his ads.

One key for advertisers is that you do not get a schedule of your ads until the morning of the day. So if you need to advertise on a set station at a set time this WILL not do that for you.

I believe this will improve radio analytics tremendously as advertisers demand improved reporting to justify the spend.